POINT COOK resident and internationally renowned film score composer Chee Wei Tay has received another award to add to his growing collection.
The Singapore-born film score composer flew back to Singapore this month to attend the Composers and Authors Society of Singapore Awards, where he received the “Wings of Excellence” Award for his work.
The top award recognised Mr Tay’s achievement in producing outstanding music performance internationally.
“It’s humbling,” Mr Tay said.
Mr Tay has composed music for films and documentaries for many international channels including Discovery Chanel, National Geographic, Animal Plant and PBS.
But his successful career almost never took-off.
At 16 he applied to study music in California but his parents were against him pursuing music, preferring him to be a doctor instead.
“I thought that was the end of it so I went to the army,” Mr Tay said.
But it was only the beginning.
During his army years Mr Tay was part of a music and drama company where he continued to engage in his love of music.
After years of struggles and trying to find his niche he finally had his big break when a friend asked him to write music for a film.
Although even then Mr Tay wasn’t convinced his career would kick off.
“I thought it was going to be my last project,” he said. “I wrote the music for it, and started packing everything up.”
“A few months later it won every major award in Singapore and production companies started calling me to write music for them.”
Mr Tay has since also garnered many nominations and wins at international award ceremonies such as Cannes Film Festival, Seoul International Short Film Festival and Lyon Asian Film Festival.
